Monday, April 22, 2013

Here's another fun piece from my collection of strange (but true) stuff: Welcome to Weirdsville - this time it's on the largest (non-nuclear) blasts on earth.

KABOOM

For
most of us BOOM, KABLAM, KABLOOIE mean a mushroom cloud and a cute
little animated turtle talking about ducking and covering – as well as
the possible End Of All Life As We Know It.

But,
unfortunately, not every monstrous explosion began with J. Robert
Oppenheimer saying "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
Even putting aside natural blasts such as the eruption of Krakatoa,
which was so massive the sound of it was heard as far away as London,
the earth has still to be rocked by more than its fair share of
man-made, non-atomic BOOMs, KABLAMs, and KABLOOIEs.

One
of the more terrifying non-nuclear explosions ever to occur was in 1917
up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Back in December of that year the
Mont-Blanc plowed into another ship, the Imo, starting a ferocious fire.
Ten minutes later the Mont-Blanc went up, creating what is commonly
considered to be one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in earth
history.

The Mont-Blanc was a big ship carrying a lot
of extremely dangerous cargo – almost 3,000 tons of munitions bound for
the war that was then tearing Europe apart. What happened that morning,
which lead to the blast and the nightmarish loss of life, reads like a
textbook example of whatever could go wrong, did. To avoid being
torpedoed, the Mont-Blanc wasn't flying any dangerous cargo flags, so no
one except for her crew knew her cargo was so dangerous. When the fire
got out of control, the Mont-Blanc's crew tried to warn as many people
as possible – but they only spoke French and the language of Halifax was
English. Not realizing the danger, crowds began to form to watch the
blaze. The Mont-Blanc, on fire, also began to drift toward a nearby pier
... that was also packed with munitions bound for the war.

When
everything finally came together – the criminal negligence, the
miscommunication, and worst of all the fire and the explosives – the
blast was roughly equal to 3 kilotons of TNT. The fireball roared up
above the town and the shockwave utterly destroyed the town and
everything within one mile of the epicenter. Metal and wreckage fell as
far away as 80 miles from the blast and the sound of the detonation was
heard more than 225 miles away. The explosion was so huge it generated a
tsunami that roared away from the epicenter and then back into the
harbor again, adding to the death and destruction.

It
wasn't until days later that the true horror of what had happened was
realized: Halifax was completely gone, erased from the face of the
earth, along with every ship in the harbor and most of the nearby town
of Dartmouth. Approximately 2,000 people died from the explosion and
another 9,000 were injured.

Unfortunately Halifax
wasn't the first such explosives-related accident in 1917. Unbelievably,
before the Mont-Blanc destroyed the town, 73 people were killed in the
explosion of a munitions factory in Silvertown in West Ham, Essex. The
sound was heard as far away as 100 miles. A year earlier, the Johnson
Barge No.17 went up Jersey City. Although only a few people were killed,
the explosion managed to damage not only Ellis Island but also the
Statue of Liberty. There were many other blasts as well, but these are
only a few of the more dreadful highlights.

You'd
think after these nightmarish explosions, caution about things that go
BOOM would have sunk in a bit, but the second world war also saw more
than its fair share of explosive accidents. In 1944, for instance, the
SS Fort Stikine went up while docked in Bombay, India. When her cargo
went up, the blast killed 800 men and injured 3,000. The fire that
followed took more than three days to control.

Also
in 1944, the UK experienced what is commonly considered the largest
blast ever to occur on British soil when 3,700 tons of high explosives
were accidentally detonated in an underground munitions store in Fauld,
Staffordshire. The explosion was so massive it formed a crater 3⁄4 of a
mile across and more than 400 feet deep – and destroyed not only the
base but a nearby reservoir (and all the water in it).

But
one of the biggest blasts – aside from the two atomic bombs dropped on
Japan – was also one of the largest in human history, and one of the
most tragic.

Once again in 1944, on July 17 to be
specific, munitions being loaded onto a ship in Port Chicago,
California, (very close to San Francisco) detonated. No one knows what
exactly caused the blast, but the damage was biblical. All in all, more
than 5,000 tons of high explosives, plus whatever else was in the stores
on the base and on any ships docked, was involved. The explosion was so
massive it was felt as far away as Las Vegas (500 miles distant) and
people were injured all over the Bay Area when windows were shattered by
the immense pressure wave.

320 were killed immediately
and almost 400 were seriously injured, but that's not the real tragedy.
Most of these men were African American and this single disaster
accounted for almost 15% of African American casualties during that war.

Still fearing for their safety, the remaining men,
who had just spent three weeks pulling the bodies of their fellow
sailors from the wreckage, refused to load any further munitions. The
Army, in a characteristic show of support, considered this an act of
mutiny and court-martialed 208 sailors, sending an additional 50 to jail
for 8 to 15 years.

Fortunately, the 'mutineers' were
given clemency after Thurgood Marshall fought for them, though the final
member only received justice in 1999 in the form of a Presidential
pardon by President Bill Clinton.

Today in Port
Chicago there's a marker on the spot and it states that the event was a
step toward "racial justice and equality."

And all it
took was one of the largest non-nuclear, man-made, blasts in the history
of the world – and the deaths of 320 sailors.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

In spring and summer, the beetles earn their name when they turn the colour of brilliant liquid gold. But capture one and the gold vanishes and the beetle becomes dirt brown. Here’s why: the colour is produced by an optical illusion; the outer cuticle is transparent and reflects light through a layer of liquid over the next layer of cuticle. The beetles change colour depending on the availability of the liquid layer. In the fall and winter, the beetles become less lustrous and are more orange and bronze with flashes of iridescent colour. If you try and collect the beetle for an insect collection, the beetle soon turns dark brown as is dries, loosing the golden colour.
-EpicLabTime

Monday, April 1, 2013

In honor of the 1st of April here's a fun little piece from The Cud - that's now, of course, in my new book, Welcome To Weirdsville, about one of my all-time favorite pranksters: the legendary Brian G. Hughes!

Nicodemus, By Broomstick Out Of Dustpan By Sweeper,

The Last
Of The Exotic Brindle Breed

"A Priest, A Rabbi, and A Minister Walk Into a Bar–"

What? You've heard that one? How about: "There once was a man from Nantucket–"

That one too? What about: "Yer Momma is so–"

Well, here's one who probably haven't ever heard, the one that starts: "There was this guy, named Brian G. Hughes..."

#

There
was this guy, named Brian G. Hughes. He was an Einstein, a Salk, a
Beethoven, a da Vinci – but he wasn't a physicist, a doctor, a composer,
or a painter. He was, according to the society pages, a rather wealthy
box manufacturer and a banker. But his genus wasn't in cardboard or
playing the market.

New York around the turn of the
previous century was a pretty dull berg, full of overly stuffed shirts
and far-too-puffed-out egos. It was a dull place, a humorless place, a
terribly stiff place – a city, and a society, that Brian G. Hughes saw
as needing to be seriously goosed.

And goose it he did:
with a flare and a flamboyance that shook New York from Battery Park to
Queens. Take for instance the time he donated a plot of valuable
Brooklyn real estate to the city, to be made into a public park. Great
gesture, right? Fine civic spirit, correct? That's what the Board of
Aldermen thought – until they actually took the time to check it out.
See, the plot of land Brian G. Hughes had donated was only a two-by-six
foot plot. Hey, he never said it would make a big park ...

Then
there was the time he donated a mansion to a few well-respectable
historical societies, one he claimed the Marquis de Lafayette had lived
in during the War of Independence. "Wow" went the Ladies of those
Historical Societies, "What a find." Until they checked out the real
estate and discovered the mansion was actually a dilapidated flophouse
in the Bronx. Seriously lacking in the giggle department, the ladies
tried to have him committed. Now there was a hearing worth attending.

But
real estate wasn't the only thing Hughes used in his pranks. For
instance, he would routinely hang out in front of Tiffany's and drop
boxes of fake jewels – just to watch people scramble to snatch up the
supposed treasures. Another time he left a set of burglar tools out in
front of a building. Nothing special in that, right? Well, the
building was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which prompted the – no
doubt humorless – curator to close the entire landmark to frantically
search for any missing paintings.

Love cats? Well, Mr.
Hughes did – though he hated the pomposity of cat shows. One time he
entered what he claimed was a spectacularly rare species. The whole of
New York was buzzing about this feline masterpiece, and it even won a
ribbon, though later on it was revealed that the cat, "Nicodemus, by
Broomstick out of Dustpan by Sweeper, the last of the exotic Brindle
breed," had actually been a common stray bought from a hobo.

Love
horses? Well, Mr. Hughes ... I think you know where this might be
going. His "Orphan Puldeca, out of Metropolitan by Electricity"
thoroughly impressed the horse show crowd, until one
sharper-than-average person figured out that "Orphan Puldeca" meant
"Often Pulled the Car" and Hughes admitted that his entry was a noble
example of a simple trolley horse.

Say you happened to
be in a downtown establishment during, alas, a totally unexpected
downpour. Why, look over there: a lovely – and apparently unclaimed –
umbrella. It wouldn't be theft, you argue with yourself. You'll bring
it right back, you conclude. Except that the instant you opened the
umbrella, one of hundreds placed around the city, a banner would unfurl
proclaiming that the bumbershoot had been STOLEN FROM BRIAN G. HUGHES.

While
Mr. Hughes was, no doubt, a charming person to know it was best not to
accept tickets from him as he was known to (tee-hee-hee) print up
hundreds different ones to all kinds of events – which never existed.

Then,
perhaps the capper to a wonderfully colorful career keeping the
too-well-heeled on their toes and putting pepper up the noses of the
upper-crusts, he announced that he – at considerable expense and at
tremendous personal risk – would embark on an expedition to deepest and
no-doubt darkest South American in pursuit of the elusive reetsa.

For
weeks New York was on the edge of its manicured toes, gasping in
excitement into its perfumed handkerchiefs, as word of the Hughes
expedition was leaked out until, just as high society feared they could
take no more, it was announced that Hughes would be returning to the
island – with a living, breathing resets!

The city was
aghast, the city was amazed, the city was riveted. By the thousands
they came down to the docks to watch Hughes return, triumphant, from his
perilous journey. Then, those crowds frozen in suspense, the ship
arrived and Hughes made his triumphant appearance – with is captured
reetsa...

There was this guy, named Brian G. Hughes,
who convinced all of New York City that he'd traveled to South America
to capture the mysterious reetsa – that turned out to be a simple farm
animal, which he led down the gangplank backwards. Reetsa, naturally
being "a steer" spelled backwards.

Here’s to you, Brian
G. Hughes: the man who made an island laugh, a whole city giggle, who
brought practical jokes to a whole new, and gloriously special, level:
truly the last of a very special exotic brindle breed.

Reel Monsters

Dark Doings at Miskatonic U

Welcome To Weirdsvlle

Love Without Gun Control

Calling M.Christian versatile is a
tremendous understatement. Extensively published in science fiction, fantasy,
horror, thrillers, and even non-fiction, it is in erotica that M.Christian has
become an acknowledged master, with stories in such anthologies as
Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual
Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and in fact too many anthologies, magazines, and
sites to name.In erotica,
M.Christian is known and respected not just for his passion on the page but
also his staggering imagination and chameleonic ability to successfully and
convincingly write for any and all orientations.

But M.Christian has other tricks up
his literary sleeve: in addition to writing, he is a prolific and respected
anthologist, having edited 25 anthologies to date including the Best S/M
Erotica series; Pirate Booty; My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes
Erotica; The Burning Pen; The Mammoth Book of Future Cops, and The Mammoth Book
of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi); Confessions, Garden of Perverse,
and Amazons (with Sage Vivant), and many more.

M.Christian's short fiction has been
collected into many bestselling books in a wide variety of genres, including
the Lambda Award finalist Dirty Words and other queer collections like Filthy
Boys, BodyWork, and his best-of-his-best gay erotica book, Stroke the
Fire.He also has collections of
non-fiction (Welcome to Weirdsville, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell
Erotica); science fiction, fantasy and horror (Love Without Gun Control); and
erotic science fiction including Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than
The Real Thing, and the acclaimed Bachelor Machine.

As a novelist, M.Christian has shown
his monumental versatility with books such as the queer vamp novels Running Dry
and The Very Bloody Marys; the erotic romance Brushes; the science fiction
erotic novel Painted Doll; and the rather controversial gay horror/thrillers
Finger's Breadth and Me2.

M.Christian is also the Associate
Publisher for Renaissance eBooks,
where he strives to be the publisher he'd want to have as a writer, and to help
bring quality books (erotica, noir, science fiction, and more) and authors out
into the world.